There’s no topic more polarizing on local social media groups than the lycra clad contingent who grace our roads all year round, but especially, right now in springtime. They’re even more abundant on weekends, as local cycling groups answer the wild call of their brethren and join them to inundate our roads en masse.
As someone who lives in the countryside, I’m used to this. I’m accustomed to being shouted and sworn at for the audacity of wanting to drive the speed limit when they want to go faster (they’ve clearly never encountered a loose sheep in the road, or a tractor bumbling round a sharp corner), or for the even more audacious desire to just, well, exist on a road. I’m happy to share, genuinely, but that’s sometimes a challenge when a peloton is bearing down upon me on both sides of the road with an angry man yelling and screaming at everyone.
More often than not, I’ve had to either stop, or pull off the road to allow these angry two-wheelers to pass, and frankly, I find that’s easier and the best option. I do not wish to spend my Sunday afternoon scraping bits of cyclists off my bonnet, and honestly, teeth are hard to extricate from a radiator. I understand there’s no compromise, and the war between the two factions of road users (cyclists vs literally everyone else) will not be easily resolved.
So in these turbulent times, I ask all of you to be patient. Be kind. Pretend you didn’t see the cyclist watering the hedge like an unneutered labrador. Turn a blind eye to the one flinging his protein bar wrapper into the wind like he’s making an offering to the gods of carbon fibre. And if they hurl abuse at poor old Dolores for daring to use a pedestrian crossing? Smile! And remember, no matter how fast they’re going, at some point they’ll have to unclip those shoes in a hurry, and we’ve all seen how that ends.